The Case of the Missing Green Sweatshirt

At the end of last spring, I bought Luke a new hooded sweatshirt on clearance from Kohl’s. It was a bright green Nike hoodie, and I remember that it was a great deal, and liking that it was finally a change from the standard Old Navy sweatshirts I’d been buying for the past several years. Old Navy sweatshirts are fine, don’t get me wrong…I’ve just been looking at the same designs for years and I’m sick of it.

I pulled the green sweatshirt out of the storage bin at the start of the school year, washed it, and wrote our last name on the tag. Within 2 weeks of school starting, even on hot days, Luke started bringing his sweatshirt to school because his classroom was a little over-air conditioned (which was fine, after they suffered through several hot days without A/C while it was broken. Which made me get all, “Did I ever tell you that the schools I went to from first through twelfth grades didn’t have air conditioning? And that we could only wear shorts on days that the principal decided it was hot enough for that to happen?” True story. Feel sorry for me.).

Not more than a week after he started wearing it, it disappeared. He swore up and down that he only ever wore it in his classroom, and I was inclined to believe him because it was still so hot outside at the time. Knowing that organization and finding missing things are not Luke’s forte, however, I questioned him over and over again, and had him check and recheck lost and found, etc.

No sweatshirt.

Obviously, I was annoyed. A little bit at Luke (because, seriously, as his mother, I can tell you – par for the course, God love him), but mostly at whoever stole it, because that was pretty much where we were in our thinking…we’d checked the school over, we’d checked everywhere in our house and van and couldn’t find it, so our conclusion was that someone took it. Which, I thought, would be pretty dumb if that’s actually what happened, because hello, our name had been in it, and it would have had to be cut or scratched out, and nevermind, IT’S BRIGHT GREEN.

Since it was clearly gone, I bought him another sweatshirt, which he’s been wearing for the past 2 weeks or so as needed.

And then, today happened.

I picked him up from his after-school club, and there he was, holding his bright green sweatshirt out to me with a HUGE grin on his face. Immediately, I asked him, “Where in the world did you find it?”

You won’t believe his response.

“In my backpack. But Mom, it was in a big pocket inside the main part of my backpack that I NEVER use. I guess I put it in there and forgot about it.”

Clearly, we all got a good laugh out of this. I mean, who doesn’t notice the bulk of a sweatshirt in a backpack for crying out loud? I will give him this: his backpack is big, and there are a lot of pockets and compartments in it. I won’t ever understand how he carried that balled up in his backpack for a month, but hey, it’s home now.

evidence that this is a pretty big backpack

and here he is, reunited with the green sweatshirt. really, they were never far apart from each other after all, it seems.

I really wish I could have been there to see his sweet face when he looked in that pocket and found it.